Hacking Neuroscience to be Happy

so one of the easiest ways to be happy is to be in a state of flow now there's this old book called flow the psychology of optimal experience or flow the secret of happiness now I don't want to pronounce the author's name I know his first name it's me Holly but his last name is almost impossible to pronounce I'm not gonna embarrass myself or you know injustice to the author but the book is about how you know the happiest people are often the ones that are in flow which is they're working on a task that they're very comfortable with and I wanted to talk a little bit about flow in this podcast one of the reasons most people suffer and feel frustrated is because they can't get themselves to think the thoughts they always want to so one thing you realize if you just close your eyes and just sat down is that you really can't control your stream of thoughts right you just have to let them flow and let them do their thing and any you know attempt at trying to change your thoughts actively is just gonna lead to resentment and frustration and you know if you want to try this out just don't think of a white elephant for the next 30 seconds all right it's harder than it seems and the reason for this is because most people don't realize that there are two brains inside you right there's the prefrontal cortex which is the seat of intelligence it's the one that evolved very recently and then there's the limbic system which is the older brain which is the monkey brain I like to call it the monkey brain because it's like in my opinion it's like having a pet in there and the sooner you realize that there are two different brains and you the rationalizing brain the prefrontal cortex have to deal with the older brain and basically you're in service of that older brain right and whether you know it or not every decision you make every rational decision you make is just serving some the needs of your limbic system or your monkey brain and the right way to treat that brain is to treat it exactly how you treat any other pet if you had a dog and a lot of people are great owners of dogs right the tree talks very well but they don't treat their monkey butt in the same way right they reprimanded they punish it they hug you with it they trap it but the right way to kind of really treat the limbic system or the monkey brain is to treat it like any other pet the treated like you treat a good pet right which is treated with respect if it's barking or if it's you know being loud unusually loud then you just ignore it remember when your dogs barking you don't go and reprimand and say why are you barking instead you just ignore it for a bit and the dog will just eventually stop barking because it's not getting in your attention so you need to learn how to ignore your older brain and it seems counterintuitive to think that there are two brains inside you but they truly are right that it's two very separate systems and you know I've held the human brain in my hand and I already knew that there were two separate systems but when you hold the real human brain in your hand and you know I had the opportunity to the Sydenham hand some time ago you realize that's no actual physical separation between these two now parts of the brain it's just like a natural extension of natural evolution so you know biology is complex and looking at it play out in behavior that's even more exciting to watch but one of the most important ways to manage your monkey brain apart from you know ignoring it when it gets too loud or you know giving it what it wants once in a while one of the best ways to kind of work with the monkey brain is to allow it to play dogs function very well if you allow them to play exercise is healthy right but more important then exercise is the fact that you need to keep the dog occupied similarly monkey brain occupied and one of the best ways to keep the monkey brain occupied is to teach at some skill right whether that we design or football or anything it could be absolutely anything even playing an instrument make sure that the dog has or the monkey brain has a certain degree of control or skill at that particular task and then eventually allow it to play which is to go ahead and you know just free play right just you imagine you're playing a video game and you're just put in the middle of the video game with a controller and you can do whatever you want in free training or practice mode that is flow right and you know the book obviously goes all over the place and talks about flow in many different ways but in short it's about letting your monkey brain play and when your monkey brain plays the other part of your brain which is the prefrontal cortex some people call it the default mode network psychologists like to use that word the default mode network which is you know the seat of not just

intelligence but also of anxiety and depression that shuts off for a bit as the monkey brain plays so the goal is to get the monkey brain to come out and do its thing while the newer brain the more rational brain takes a break and just chills out and that is how you stay happy